This recipe is from Susana Trilling, who owns the Seasons of My Heart Cooking School in Oaxaca, Mexico. It uses an herb called hoja santa that has a large, fragrant leaf. Look for it in Latin markets but if unavailable, watercress is the best substitute. Serve this soup with a dark beer like Negra Modelo and cornbread. Read Dave DeWitt's entire spicy spring soup article here.

A Singapore Nonya favorite, this dish is cooked in a wok and can also be served with the Nasi Kunyit recipe found here. Find more recipes and read about Dave DeWitt's Singapore trip in the article Singapore Fling By Dave De Witt

This recipe is from David Paul's Lahaina Grill in Lahaina, Maui. This dessert may make you sing and is a guaranteed hit at any fun affair. It's also a really pretty cake, and is especially attractive when you save an assortment of chiles to garnish the platter. Read more spicy cake recipe ideas here.

This vegetarian soup from India is so full flavored that you won’t miss the meat. I like to cook with lentils because unlike other beans, you don’t have to plan ahead to soak them overnight, and they cook quickly. This soup makes a great entree by reducing the amount of liquid, either pureeing the soup or not, and serving it over rice.

Few people have ever heard of the Mascarenes, and these islands are more known by their individual names: Réunion, Mauritius, and Ródrigues. They are a departement of France and lie hundred of miles east of Madagascar, hundreds of miles away from each other, and although they vary greatly in geography, culture, and religion, they have one great thing in common: a love of chile peppers. On all three islands, chiles of every size and heat level are lovingly grown and added to a cuisines that can generically be called Creole. Rebecca Chastenet de Gry, one of my writers, collected this recipe for me on Réunion Island. She wrote: "Alter the heat in this extremely hot salsa by changing the chiles used. Traditionally the smaller piquin or bird's eye chiles are the types preferred, but milder ones, such as red serranos, can be used." Serve it--easy does it--over clams, other shellfish, or grilled fish fillets.

The famous food writer M. F. K. Fisher described this sauce as follows: “A peppery concoction suited to the taste of bouillabaisse, served separately from the soup to be ladled in at the discretion of the individual diner.”

Here is a standard Spanish hot sauce would probably be prepared with the small, hot guindilla (“little cherry”) chiles. Serve this tasty sauce over steamed vegetables, roasted meats, or fish prepared by any method.

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Indonesia grows goats rather than sheep, yet "mutton' was the meat of choice in the wet market of Little India in Singapore, so I can only assume that this delicious, curry-like soup can be made from either lamb or goat meat. The recipe is courtesy of Mrs. Devagi Shanmugam of the Thomson Cooking Studio. Find more recipes and read about Dave DeWitt's Singapore trip in the article Singapore Fling By Dave De Witt